Interstellar Marines: trite name, crowd-sourced budget

Zero Point Software has an ambitious plan: to make an Indie game with AAA …

It's easy to dismiss Interstellar Marines as an uninspired entry in a long line of first-person shooters. After all, it's about marines. In space. Who sometimes use flashlights to see in dark hallways and presumably fight aliens. However, moving past that surface impression, it quickly becomes apparent that this game is something we're not used to: an Indie game with some major production values, one that's been a labor of love for its development team for quite some time.

As it turns out, developer Zero Point Games has managed to accomplish this feat without the help of a publisher. Instead, the company has funded the game's development through nothing more than its own ingenuity, resulting in a business plan that is—for the moment—an experiment that might very well launch an entirely new category when it comes to independent video games.

A new way to fund indie games

Zero Point has taken a unique approach to funding the game's development: they're preselling it and using the cash from fans to continue the work. It's certainly a different funding method, but it isn't terribly surprising, since the developer seems dead-set on bucking as many stereotypes as possible by being a "AAA Indie" company. The AAA Indie concept comes from the AAA label—associated with things of incredibly high-quality—and the fact that Zero Point Software is about as indie a developer as it could possibly be.

"We have always wanted to establish a community for Interstellar Marines while developing the game," said game director Kim Jørgensen, "primarily because our ambition is making one of the best FPS experiences ever; we know this can only be achieved if we involve people [that love and play] FPS games, so we can get their continuous feedback.

"Through open-door development, free-to-play marketing, social networking, and digital distribution, Zero Point Software has already optimized the value chain down to just the developer making the games and people that buy games. We currently have [over 22,000] registered marines and the community is growing fast, now that people can actually play Bullseye, our first preview slice. We have high hopes and faith in this strategy of ours called AAA Indie."

Keeping things honest

Of course, preselling a game to fans might seem like a dubious way to do business, since there's no real guarantee that the game is going to come out. However, the company has a form of insurance for community members to show that their money is going toward more than just the weekend beer supply: the developer is releasing a series of interactive demos on the Web, highlighting different elements of the game.

So far, two of the demos have been put onto the game's website, The Vault and Bullseye, and four more are currently scheduled before the first game in the trilogy is finally released. It's a great idea, since gamers get to see something tangible and are thus more likely to send some cash over to Zero Point. But the best part is how cool they have been so far.

The Vault is an interactive tease for players, showing off a few different things they'll get to see in the actual game. Initially, you walk up to a holographic display showcasing the titular marines and a mech walker battling what looks like combinations of sharks and lions. You can walk into corresponding rooms and find out details on the specific factions/units that make up the scenes, which means that you can actually get an idea of what's going to happen in the game's plot when we see the final release.

Bullseye, meanwhile, is an actual minigame that is more than a little reminiscent of the Namco's Police Trainer rail shooters. Players are set loose on a firing range and guided by an Artificial Intelligence program that outlines objectives and then grades players after each level. Later levels let players unlock and sample the destructive power of advanced weapons and equipment. The gunplay is solid, and the Unity Engine seems to handle things promisingly enough, though we should wait to see how it performs during a frantic firefight before casting a final verdict. That said, the last time we saw the Unity Engine being used on such a high-level scale was when we reviewed Cartoon Network Universe: FusionFall. The game engine now seems to be capable of a presentation that is much more impressive than what was on display at this time last year.

Fans who pre-order the game can select one of two versions to buy: "Spearhead" or "Frontline." The former—which costs $39.00—will net players a copy of the entire planned trilogy, a unique unit identity in the game and on the website, and all sorts of goodies like digital wallpaper and free MP3 versions of the soundtrack. The second version goes for $25.00 and provides the same freebies, but only a digital copy of the first game in the series. Finally, players can simply pledge $5 and earn a "Support Medal" label, which will show up in their community identities.

Based on these different levels of support, one might wonder if helping to finance the game or preordering it will give players an unfair advantage when it's finally released. Jørgensen is adamant that it won't: "Spearhead and Frontline upgrades will not change gameplay... we don't want to have people buy game advantages, especially because our big goal for 2010 is to release our competitive multiplayer and that would unbalance the experience if [Spearhead or Frontline players] were better just because they supported us with some money. [Spearhead and Frontline players] will have their emblem visible on their shoulder, they get extra bonus content like the Playground level in Bullseye, they stand out due to various visual enhancements, they have beta access to all playable preview slices released, briefing room access and so much more we haven't thought about yet!"

A multi-platform AAA Indie title?

While Interstellar Marines might be set to come out on for the PC, 360, and PS3, the demos are currently playable via major web browsers on either the Mac or Windows operating systems. Of course, since they rely on the Unity Engine, different Web browsers work with varying degrees of success: performance is rather slow when played in Safari, Google Chrome can't utilize the engine at all yet, but Firefox and Internet Explorer don't seem to have any problems with it.

Of course, the console development for the game isn't as high a priority as the PC version, though it's still tentatively planned. "If enough people want [the game] on consoles and when Unity moves their technology to consoles (which they are) we will have Interstellar Marines on consoles as well," said Jørgensen. "We just need to convince Microsoft and Sony to serve the game digitally. We do not necessary expect the development to be completely parallel with the development on the PC version, but who knows."

It's been well-documented how difficult it is for indie developers to get funding, but Zero Point Software's quest for funds seems to have been surprisingly fruitful. Granted, the game is a ways off from actual arrival in mainstream markets, but the developer has managed to steadily continue down a path toward this goal. If Interstellar Marines proves successful, this could be the start of AAA Indie games as a legitimate category in the video game industry.